Ready Steady Cook

When I studied English at university, one of my little assignments was to study “The Great Vowel Shift” of the 15th century. I would jokingly refer to it as the Bowel Movement of the Middle Ages. Basically, it was what determined accents to develop between different parts of England. The Queen’s English as we now know it used to be considered the vulgar accent, whereas the Northern accent, the butt of many 20th century jokes, was the "Received Pronunciation" of the day. How things change. I blame the BBC.

Strangely, there are many culinary divides too. I recently read a fascinating cornucopia of Jewish culinary arts around the world. Here are some of the quirks of geography. There are distinct regions where one type was developed over the other.

Sheep/goat milk cheese vs cow’s milk cheese
Red lentil soup vs green lentil soup
Pickled cucumbers vs pickled turnips
Filo and strudel pastry vs puff pastry

The ubiquitous Eggplant, which seems to appear in every Israeli home started life in India, moved west to Iran, north east to Uzbekistan and south to Yemen. It galloped from Persia to Turkey and thence to Georgia, simultaneously doing u turn through Romania and the Ukraine, stampeding through the Balkans, and swinging across North Africa, finally coming to a screeching halt in Italy. The Romans most likely used the vegetable as a weapon of war. No wonder the Empire couldn’t strike back.

Cow’s milk cheese confined itself to northern Europe and parts of Eastern Europe. The goats and sheep provided cheese for the lunch box in N. Africa, Middle East, Persia and the Med.

The pastry boundaries are pretty clear cut when it is puff: GB, France, Spain and Italy. Germany and Austria couldn’t decide whether to strudel or puff, so did both, the rest of the world went phyllo. Except for a lost tribe in Yemen, who puffed too. There has to be a BBC link there somewhere.

The spread of stuffed cabbage is almost as terrifying as Egg plant. Some Gordon el Ramsi invented it in Persia and it boiled its way to Syria, Egypt, Georgia, Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, Italy, Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, the Baltic States and the Austria-Hungarian Empire. It came to a halt in Germany. There’s a BBC link there too, if only I could find it.

So, history in a casserole dish.